Streaming Accessibility: A Rant
2023-01-08 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rodoI still have not finished House of the Dragon. The main reason: I need to be in a certain mood to be able to watch it because I watch it with my mother. No, it’s not about the sex and the violence – I need the patience of a saint for it.
So, my mother is in her mid-seventies, and as is usual in that age group, she doesn’t have the best hearing anymore. Her brain also isn’t that good at making out what’s happening on a super dark screen. Usually that isn’t that much of a problem. We watch lots of series together, and normally I just put on the subtitles and explain what’s happening to her in the few scenes that are a bit too dark to see easily. No problem. I can do that.
Except HotD is on a streaming platform in my country that has The Worst App. There are no subtitles, not even months after the episodes came out. Or if there are, they aren’t accessible on my version of the app (the one on my PS4, because my TV is no longer supported because it’s too old). So, great, we’re watching dubbed, because my mum can’t handle English that well. Also, have you noticed how a lot of the names are kind of similar? Aegon, Vaemond, Daemon, Aemond, etc.? Yeah, my mother can’t tell them apart even with her hearing aids and the volume so high it hurts my ears because they’re so similar and there’s no visual input in the form of subtitles to help her tell them apart. That D at the end gets kind of soft, and the consonants at the start of a word are something she struggles with, so three of those names are functionally identical, and Aegon is only one consonant off. Which doesn’t help because the World of Ice and Fire has too many Aegons anyway.
Add to that that the series is so fucking dark and she had no idea what’s happening to whom half of the time, and I need to pause to explain everything to her so often. I’m honestly tempted to download an illegal version just so I can watch it with her with fewer interruptions. I’m pretty sure I could get subtitles for those.
So, my mother is in her mid-seventies, and as is usual in that age group, she doesn’t have the best hearing anymore. Her brain also isn’t that good at making out what’s happening on a super dark screen. Usually that isn’t that much of a problem. We watch lots of series together, and normally I just put on the subtitles and explain what’s happening to her in the few scenes that are a bit too dark to see easily. No problem. I can do that.
Except HotD is on a streaming platform in my country that has The Worst App. There are no subtitles, not even months after the episodes came out. Or if there are, they aren’t accessible on my version of the app (the one on my PS4, because my TV is no longer supported because it’s too old). So, great, we’re watching dubbed, because my mum can’t handle English that well. Also, have you noticed how a lot of the names are kind of similar? Aegon, Vaemond, Daemon, Aemond, etc.? Yeah, my mother can’t tell them apart even with her hearing aids and the volume so high it hurts my ears because they’re so similar and there’s no visual input in the form of subtitles to help her tell them apart. That D at the end gets kind of soft, and the consonants at the start of a word are something she struggles with, so three of those names are functionally identical, and Aegon is only one consonant off. Which doesn’t help because the World of Ice and Fire has too many Aegons anyway.
Add to that that the series is so fucking dark and she had no idea what’s happening to whom half of the time, and I need to pause to explain everything to her so often. I’m honestly tempted to download an illegal version just so I can watch it with her with fewer interruptions. I’m pretty sure I could get subtitles for those.
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Date: 2023-01-09 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-10 03:36 pm (UTC)